plunk

There was this boy, right?

His name was Augustus.

And he hated his name almost as much as you do.

Because don’t you always imagine someone with the name Augustus as an obnoxious, stuck up, buck-toothed fat kid that wears stupid red bowties and eats a lot of pie?

Me too.

That’s why everyone called him Kole.

I assume he was kinda short.

And he had this fascination for Ferris wheels and oranges as a kid.

So one day he took a walk.

He wore only one shoe because he had sold the other for a quarter 2 weeks ago.

But he wrote a goodbye letter to his mother on his bare wooden wall with cheap blue acrylic paint.

All he took with him was the stained paintbrush and a cigarette lighter.

He was from the Midwest.

He crossed the Pacific.

He was thirsty and his fingers were wrinkled that morning he awoke on A Ship.

Every vertebrate of his spine was tattooed to its creaky deck.

Eight days later

His feet were numb as an anchor plunged deep into sand.

He could see treetops behind the silky white sails.

So he slept.

Until a girl with wild silver hair fell from her swing and landed beside him.

They linked arms and scraped their bodies from The Ship, kicking themselves to a lonely dirty road.

Miles.

They walked.

And so named the blind dog they found 12 sunny nights later.

The only treasure they found was an unopened child’s Paint-By-Number kit at the end of a gray rainbow.

They uprooted the thickest, oldest twisted tree in the wood nearby and buried the paper in its place.

Ten days later, a well grew.

He painted their names into the stone.

They left it there, making their way to India. And Miles became their guardian.

A plane crashed one day mid-October.

Kole saw it wind its way toward Earth and catch fire on the dead ground.

Their tired eyes watched the flames for hours as they roasted marshmallows picked from the branches of a Marshmallow Tree.

That night, a little boy crawled through the rubble and gave a yellow rose to the girl.

He hugged Miles’ scruffy neck before collapsing there.

He didn’t wake for 6 years.

So Kole painted his face on the remains of that plane and carried The Sleeping Kidd across Asia.

He smelled like toast, even when it rained.

But the girl folded her yellow rose up tight and stuck it in her pocket, where it never died.

So she didn’t mind.

They met a barefoot, middle-aged man along the way.

He had a beard and carried a large green suitcase.

He was sad because his beautiful wife was dead.

So he joined them.

And they called him Kuwait, because that’s where he’d been found.

India had long since disappeared off the face of the Earth.

Kuwait, The Sleeping Kidd, Miles, Kole, and the girl traveled together with no destination.

The group grew.

A teenage girl named Copenhagen walked with them.

She wore cheesy, plastic jewelry and tacky bright pink shoes with striped socks.

But she took good pictures and left them for strangers to find.

Kole would paint colorful picture frames around the photos on the sidewalk where she dropped them.

No wind could budge them from the cement.

Moscow 1 and Moscow 2 were Siamese twins, joined at the hip.

Moscow 1 ate only peanut butter.

Moscow 2 ate only jelly.

They both had an intolerance to wheat.

Oslo joined next.

They found him cowering in a newspaper stand, armed with a Super Soaker.

He was 62 years old and had a terrible fear of birds.

But he wrote amazing stories.

And Kole illustrated them.

The 9 strangers trekked all the way to the southern tip of Africa.

They celebrated an unceremonious Monday in late February at an underground carnival.

A 3000 foot ladder led them there.

Kole painted each rung he descended, alternating colors and patterns to make the most incredible rickety ladder in the world.

It was a place for broken travelers to rest, not play.

He curled up inside a dizzy Ferris Wheel and painted his own fingertips.

Thousands of mysterious people walked below him.

Some did have blue skin, pink hair, two heads, one leg.

Some did not.

But they could all sing.

They would settle themselves on noisy sit-upons made in elementary school and harmonize their sweet voices after dark.

That’s how the travelers would sleep.

Despite the flashing bright spinning lights and uncomfortable worn leather seats.

They spent a week there, living off of candy apples and music and strawberry shakes and loud sleep.

When they left, so did a dozen others.

They were a band.

A Nameless Band

Of Nameless People.

They played harps and trap sets on the same stage.

They got drunk and played dinosaur tag in wide, deserted fields at night.

One could build things.

One baked oatmeal cookies.

One had a glass eye.

But they could all sing.

And they did.

All 21 of them stole a hot air balloon from the cloudy sky and crowded inside.

For 50 years, the balloon sailed back and forth across the world, while it’s occupants

Snapped amazing pictures

Wrote amazing stories

Made amazing music.

Then Miles died.

And the moon vanished.

Thirteen stars fell

But only ten of them hit their target.

They tore massive star-shaped holes in the balloon

And landed in the girl’s outstretched hand.

Her fingers curled around them as she slept.

They pierced her skin and drew blood

But she never died.

“Let’s have a ceremony.”

So they did.

Kole ignited the cold cigarette lighter and tossed it above his head to set fire to the balloon.

It shattered into a million little pieces and tossed the strangers skyward, scrambling them like tiny puzzle pieces.

Each one gripped a cloud and floated slowly to an overgrown backyard in the Midwest.

They stuffed their clouds into a drainpipe

To keep forever.

Together they built an enormous roof

To cover the entire Earth.

Then they all placed their bones deep inside the gnarled ground

As Kole painted a mural on the world

And sent his tired happy little boy limbs to bed.

 

 

 

Author's Note

shame there's no such drama as "late-night blabbering."
i know this is terribly rough. it was sort of thrown together late one night- quickly, before my computer screen could have another seizure. consequently, huge chunks are missing [like, basketball-sized chunks]. i plan on re-constructing it a LOT, but for now, it'll have to stay a little shaky.